it's my absolute pleasure to get on site with Alex Sime from NEO electrical solutions thank
you for joining me thanks very much Alex won the eFIXX smart home award in association with
Ring and this is a beautiful smart home but i've got a question before we start
the celebrations that you released on Instagram did you spill any red wine i had no absolutely not
all the red wine did stay in the glass on that on that occasion i must say is the property we're in
today typical of the sort of things you do at NEO absolutely yeah um the job at today uh full smart
home automation system is exactly the sort of jobs that we get involved with at NEO so how do we go
about selecting the products and the locations for the lights in this area we work quite closely with
a the the client the end user but as well with Collingwood and their um design team you know
from the client he wanted um really sustainable fittings in terms of maintenance it won't have to
touch anything budget wasn't as much of an issue but again had to see kind of a bit of value for
money for there in terms of the overall selection of products you know your notes on some of the
beams um we use more spot fittings uh within more narrow dispersion to you know really illuminate
the the grains in the oak whereas some of them are or more of a flood option so to really kind
of illuminate the the open beam and the open barn sort of stall we've got a certain feeling at the
moment but obviously it's mid afternoon we come into that evening and you can completely transform
this space with the light as well can you absolutely so i mean everything's sort of dimmable
throughout but not only that uh everything's done in zones or tears so you've got the upper
tiers the middle tiers and the lower tiers lower level so obviously we can have dimming independent
for each of those but you know you don't have to think that far normally because it's still done
preset as a scene you know so it's as simple as pressing you know an evening an afternoon or a
morning setting and you know in theory the lights are preset to whatever is designed at that exact
moment in time really always being a skeptic when it comes to smart because they say to
me you've got to use your phone or your tablet in order to control your lights you get guests
coming in or an older relative that can't work those sort of things the whole system falls down
is that the case here Alex absolutely not Gary so i mean like anything we always say that with
these smart systems they have to work first time every time especially when it comes to lighting
so there's no good you know waiting for your wi-fi or some kind of connectivity on an iPad this job
in particular we've got the hardwired switches throughout the property that are just running a
cat 6 cable um to accommodate the Rako switches this switch in particular though is a wireless
switch has a lithium battery um many advantages for that are especially in this situation we've
got the oak post so completely impossible for us to get a cable in place to service that switch as
well as it being you know just a lithium battery uh wirelessly we can have a switch this close to
the pool we'd have to worry about you know water regrets and all that sort of stuff so
you seem to got it all covered but you can use an app and there's some clever features then you can
do that because there's lots of properties around here all controlled off the same app isn't that
that is yeah that's true actually there's on this particular property one at the moment this is the
pool house we've got the main house and various other guest properties all controlled via the same
app or same switches because obviously using this system we can have multiple sources of lighting
all controlled from multiple switches all you know compiled into individual scenes or zones
so the client can quite literally control any light across the entire property or the estate
from any switch or any property within within that so it's quite versatile system really and
it is a smart system i'm still itching to see it work on an app for me Alex absolutely here
we go so um let's start from uh from the ground and work our way up so we start from the corners
then the lower level wall lights yeah lower tier
and the upper tier bringing those in stages absolutely and then of course all these are
dimmable so then we can you know work our way back using the app slowly dim just bring
those light levels down okay behind us as well then you'll see put the gym on gym will come on
seamless there we go yeah that is effortless and now that's working locally through the Rako app
absolutely so um with this app being on the on the wi-fi network the wi-fi network actually covers
multiple houses on this property but yeah we can control any of these lights from anywhere on the
property by this app now people talk about being out of control they're smart stuff from anywhere
in the world is there anything you could do that this property could be controlled from anywhere
yeah absolutely so um you know there's a number of systems that do offer that um we actually have
an elan system as a backend solution to kind of take over multiple um systems that are already in
place so just to make it a little bit more simple but yeah that works from anywhere in the world
you brought me into the plant room to show me the brains behind the great technology just to
explain what we've got here this is a you know real classic Rako uh control system using their
rack eight system so each of these boxes here gives us eight outgoing circuits the rack link
is where our switches are wired back to the cat6 cables you've got the bridge which is effectively
the brain behind the system that's what our phone talks to uh and then you've got this um 230 volt
contact interface so that's actually just some dry contacts for some variants on the bits and pieces
okay so our outgoing circuits come out to our transformers that are feeding our low voltage
downlights worries me now because i'm thinking the length of the run and the size of the cables
you have to take out there yeah i know what you mean uh and actually that it was on our mind uh
we did actually speak liaise with the Collingwood technical department for that just to confirm
and we're actually really surprised with the power of these drivers under fittings um on one
mil cable often was actually good up to about 80 90 meters wow uh wait for me to get someone
from Collingwood here to define these numbers but yeah we were actually we've actually wired
these in one five which is massively over spec to be honest with you but you know it gives us
options to upgrade the drivers for larger drivers add more lights if they ever wanted to that sort
of stuff so i like the way you spun that into a future-proofing one as well absolutely absolutely
it's a beautiful property and a beautiful location but that obviously brings some issues with being
so rural maybe about security can the lighting system help with that yeah absolutely it can so
really this Rako system the best thing for that is what we call occupancy simulation
so it basically gives the illusion that someone is living within the property or at the property
through the lighting to even when they're not so you know simple things like uh the homeowner
has a button by beside the door home and away as soon as they click that away setting it kind of
enters into this occupancy simulation you know the lights can come on in the kitchen for say
half an hour to give the illusion someone's making dinner lights then come on down the
hallway for just a couple of minutes and not enough time for them to walk down and then
the lighting might come on in the living room at a really dim that will kind of give the effect that
someone might be sitting there watching tv um all just to basically give the illusion that someone
is within the property when they're not that is great and it's another feature that probably
people don't look at when they're thinking about a Smart lighting control isn't it no absolutely we
do find that is one of the most overlooked aspects or features of these systems but it's one that
people do generally get a lot of a lot of use out of once once they are installed
i'm off to put a cash offer into the property we looked at today with Alex if you're interested
in nominating your company for any of the eFIXX awards i'll leave a link for it in the description
below and if you want to check out one of the other award-winning videos check out just here